UPDATE: Before trying this recipe, read the comments below this post! A couple Mellow Mushroom employees have chimed in with some great tips! Thanks to everyone who has made this and taken the time to comment.

Have you ever been to Mellow Mushroom? They opened one near us a couple years ago and it has quickly become our favorite pizza joint. Not that we eat out frequently, but when we do, Mellow Mushroom is one of our top picks. We've never had a pizza there we didn't absolutely LOVE.

But what really makes their pizza, and you know this if you've been there, is their amazing crust. The texture is divine. The taste is wonderful. There is NO crust avoiding at Mellow Mushroom. Even crust discarders will eat their crust.

Every time we go there, without fail, I'll end up whining to my husband how "I wish I could make a crust like this at home!" Until now. Because after our last visit there, I became determined to find a similar enough pizza crust recipe that I can make at home.

I came home and searched and Googled, I read blogs and forums and scoured Pinterest. I sifted through obscure parts of the internets, reading strange posts by baking scientists. I baked multiple pizzas, tweaking the recipes each time. Finally, I came up with a crust that, while {probably} not the exact recipe Mellow Mushroom uses, it's close enough that I'm HAPPY!

My husband is also very HAPPY these days. Thanks to my new pizza crust.

It's easy, it's simple, but I learned so much that I went from the girl who used a blah recipe without questions to knowing tons of facts and info about how to really make pizza crust. It's not complicated, but there are a few tricks...

I'll get to the Holy Shiitake copycat later, that's just toppings. First, let's look at what I learned about crust during my studies....

To make fantastic pizza crust at home:

Preheat your oven AND your pizza stone {you NEED a pizza stone} to 550 degrees at least an hour before baking. Yes, 550! That's as high as my oven goes, but oh we go there. No we didn't? Yes we did!

Cornmeal is a must. Of course! Why did I never think of this before? All the restaurants use it. It helps avoid using too much flour and makes your crust a little more crunchy on the outside. We want this. You'll roll your pizza dough out on a lightly floured, but heavily cornmealed, surface. If you don't have a pizza peel, I recommend rolling out your pizza dough onto parchment paper. Don't use wax paper, you'll burn down your house.

Skip the sugar! Word on the street is Mellow Mushroom uses molasses--yes, molasses!--in place of any sugar. I've tried this, and it's delicious. Why granny, I never knew you could be like this in the kitchen--you saucy minx!

TIP: Try using spring water instead of tap, as Mellow Mushroom says they do. I haven't noticed a difference, but if you really want to copycat MM, then go ahead and try.

Between the metal bowl and the molasses, your water should cool quickly enough to sprinkle in your yeast. Think bath water temperature, around 100 degrees, you don't want it too hot, that will kill your yeast. Cooler is better than too hot, but warm is best.

Sprinkle in your yeast

TIP: I even go so far as to stir it gently in to make sure it all gets wet.TIP: Don't smell molasses right out of the jar. Especially if you're pregnant. I love molasses in cookies and even pizza, but right out of the jar it smells like wet dog. You don't want to have to start a whole new batch of dough because you tossed your cookies into the first one.

TIP: You don't want to just dump salt into your yeast mixture, as salt kills yeast when it has direct contact. It's actually important to dilute it into the flour first.
Go ahead and dump your flour and salt mix into the yeast mixture, then add 1 tablespoon olive oil.
See? That's really all very simple.
Turn your mixer on stir with the dough hook and let it knead your dough for about 5 minutes.
The dough will get itself all worked up. Sheesh, you'd think you started talking politics with it or something.
It should be sticky, but if it's too sticky to even handle then go ahead and mix in another 1/4 cup of flour and try again.

Remove it from the bowl, form into a ball, and place it into a greased, lightly floured bowl. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.
At this point you can place it in the fridge to rise over the course of several hours, a great choice if you want to make your crust in the morning. Or, leave it out covered in a dark warm place for a couple hours.

This dough makes one large pizza, two medium pizzas, or 4-6 personal pizzas. Divide it as you wish.

Now let's talk baking...

Again, you want to roll your pizza dough out with cornmeal {and maybe a little flour, and flour your hands a tad}.
But when I say "roll it out" I mean, pick that ball of dough up and let gravity work for you. Turn the dough in your hands like you would a steering wheel.
You can do thin or thick crust, and I wanted to show you a few options you have...

Here, I preheated my pizza stone high up in the oven, rolled the crust pretty thin, and turned on the broiler right after putting my pizza in.
For this pizza, the Holy Shiitake copycat, I kept my stone lower in the oven, did a pretty thick crust, and you can see the result.
You can do whatever you think you'd like best. Broiler or no broiler? Broiling gets a darker, blackened crust in spots. Thin or thick crust is a preference thing. Both methods had lovely texture.

BEFORE baking your pizza, however, brush the crust with a melted garlic butter. This is, supposedly, what is done at Mellow Mushroom.
If you don't have a pizza peel, the parchment paper works great for easy sliding on and off the pizza stone. For serving, the baked pizza should come off your parchment paper just fine. If you're having the Queen of England over for dinner, you don't want to serve her pizza directly off the parchment paper, do you?{WARNING: After a commenter mentioned her parchment paper catching on fire, I'd recommend cutting the paper very close to the pizza's edge so there is no excess to burn as well as keeping a VERY close eye on the pizza while cooking. Of course, a pizza peel would be the best thing to avoid fires altogether!}
Bake at 550 degrees for 5-7 minutes, keeping a close eye on it. The beauty of a preheated pizza stone is that your pizza's center will be just as well baked as the crust.
Another last minute Mellow Mushroom touch, sprinkled that crust with parmesan right when it comes out of the oven.

This crust has been WONDERFUL for us! Between the molasses and the baking methods I've learned, we get that perfect mix of chewy & crunchy crust that is still soft on the inside and has a rich taste. I'll never try another crust recipe again I think. The molasses adds an extra sumpthin' to the taste as well, for sure, while not tasting molassesy.
It tastes very much like Mellow Mushroom's pizza, but even if you've never been there, I think this crust recipe would be a hit for any family. The Queen of England might even like it. Just don't serve hers on parchment paper.

Now, since I talked up Mellow Mushroom so much, I'll share our homemade version of our very favorite pizza from MM: their "Holy Shiitake" pizza!

Once my dough was formed, I brushed it with olive oil and truffle oil, and topped it with mozzarella and shredded romano cheese. Then I sprinkled on a liberal amount of sliced baby bella mushrooms {Mellow Mushroom uses a mushroom variety but they're pricey so I just picked up a pack of sliced baby bellas}, caramelized red onion, and pre-cooked bacon. {The MM menu doesn't include bacon, but the waiters always suggest it as an add-on and it's very yummy, so I added it at home.}
I baked it the same, though lower in the oven and no broiler. Of course, the crust was brushed with garlic butter before and sprinkled with parmesan after baking.
The finishing touches include a drizzle of garlic aioli and a sprinkling of chives!
Not only was this very similar to Mellow Mushroom's Holy Shiitake pizza, some family members who helped us eat it said it was the best pizza they've ever had. Well, shoot!

Directions:
1. Place hot water in mixer bowl and stir in molasses. Once cooled to warm, sprinkle on yeast and gently stir it in. Let sit 10 minutes.
2. Mix flour and salt together. Add flour mix and olive oil to yeast mixture.
3. Using a dough hook, run mixer on low/stir for 5 minutes.
4. Form dough into ball and place in a lightly greased bowl, sprinkle with flour. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and kitchen towel, let rise in fridge over several hours or on counter top for 2 hours, or until doubled.
5. Preheat oven to 550 degrees with pizza stone, hold temperature at least 30 minutes before baking pizza.
6. Form dough into pizza crust, top as desired. Brush crust with garlic butter. Slide onto preheated pizza stone, bake 5-7 minutes or until done, using oven on bake or broil setting, as desired. Sprinkle crust with parmesan cheese immediately after removing from oven.

Toppings for a "Holy Shiitake" copycat:

sliced mushrooms (baby bellas, shiitake, or whatever gets your goat)

caramelized onions

pre-cooked bacon, chopped

olive oil

white truffle oil (buy this, it's so worth it)

garlic aioli (added after baking)

chives, chopped (added after baking)

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we have! Though we will still frequent our local Mellow Mushroom, they have amazing pizzas and drinks. Our other favorite pies of their's include the Philosopher's Pie, the Red Skin Potato Pie, and the Magical Mystery Tour. Everything there is delish!

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I do have to say that the Holy Shiitake pizza was the best pizza I have had the pleasure of enjoying. Great job Heather and by the way, I blame you if I started to gain a few pounds because of all this delicious pizza!

I only use parchment paper because we don't have a pizza peel! I've also just used the corm meal generously to make the pizza slide onto the pizza stone without getting the toppings *too* messed up. You don't HAVE to have the parchment paper.

As for your oven, 500 degrees is still good, just go with that. Try out the broiling method too, but watch your pizza carefully. As long as the pizza stone is pre-heated well, it should cook thoroughly.

I like to roll mine out and even put on the toppings so it's all ready to pull out just like a store bought frozen pizza. But you can also just wrap the dough ball up really well, lightly greased of course, and freeze it in an airtight bag.

I'm glad I found this. I actually work at Mellow Mushroom and I've been trying to emulate the dough and I've come sort of kind of close but I will absolutely have to try this. One thing, The garlic butter goes on after the pizza comes out of the oven.

I tried your recipe tonight and made a couple adjustments....I didn't have molasses so I subbed honey. I also used a cup of whole wheat flour in place of a cup of all purpose. I used parchment like you suggested. All I can say is OMG!!!! My family and I LOVE Mellow Mushroom and this crust is surprisingly CLOSE to the actual crust at Mellow Mushroom. I was shocked! I can only imagine how much better it is going to be when I try the molasses (which will be in a couple days...lol). Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. It is amazing!!!!

Ahh! I'm so glad to read your comment! As I said, I can't say it's exact unless I have the Mellow Mushroom recipe card right in front of me (and I don't!) but it's very close in my family's opinion too. We've grown to love this homemade pizza crust just as much as the Mellow Mushroom's.

I hope you continue to enjoy it! Thanks so much for the lovely comment ;-)

So I made this today and while the dough was absolutely fantastic, I can't recommend putting it directly under the broiler. MY PARCHMENT PAPER CAUGHT FIRE and burned half of the top of one of the pizzas. I was able to cut off the burned part off and eat the rest of the deliciousness. The second pizza at the bottom of the oven was perfect.

I have made this twice now and LOVE it! I do have a question though… both times I have made this I have had to add quite a bit more flour to get the dough to come together. The first time I thought maybe I measured wrong, but after the 2nd time (and being especially careful to measure properly) turned out too runny I knew there was something wrong. The crust still turns out great (after adding close to another 1/2-1 cup or more of flour) but I was wondering what I may be doing wrong? Can it be due to kitchen temp or humidity? We usually keep the house a cool 69 degrees, so I wouldn’t think so… Any ideas?

Hey there, I don't think you're doing anything wrong! I've encountered recipes like this where I had to add flour to get the right effect, and I think it just depends on the person and the place. Add flour until the consistency is right, it what I'd say. I live in an extremely dry state (Colorado) and thus we might need less flour than our more moisturized friends :-)

475 is for the industrial stone baked pizza ovens(but nowadays we are using 500), so you'll need a little extra heat from your home oven, especially if your trying to heat a pizza stone If you're using a pizza stone, be sure to heat it for AT LEAST one hour before baking your pizza on it. :)

I'm a pizza baker at Mellow and I have to say you are quite close.Although I don't know there entirety of the dough recipe, it's often discussed amongst workers. Here's a few tip's though, 1. About a minute and a half/two minutes before the pizza is done, place a baking screen beneath it. It gives the crust an even cook. The goal at Mellow is for our crust to be "Mellow Brown" (the color of our pizza boxes) all of the way through. 2. Brush the crust with garlic butter AFTER, that's what keeps it warm and soft to the center of the crust by the time you reach it. 3. Parmesan the crust and the center (where the tip of each slice would meet). It gives you all of the flavor, first and last bite. Hope you found it useful! Stay Mellow!

I can't wait to try this! I work at Mellow Mushroom but I can't afford to eat there except on rare occasions. But the food is SO GOOD and I have to be around it all day! So I figured I'd see if anyone found a dupe for their dough so I could make it at home.

A couple of tips:

It might vary between different restaurants, but at the one where I work we always butter the crust right after it comes out of the oven.

For the Holy Shitake pizza, we use a base of olive oil sprinkled with minced garlic.

Stumbled across your blog while searching for yet another homemade pizza crust. I mean, how hard can it be to make a decent one at home?? Apparently more so than I realized. This, however, was *delicious* and I'm excited to make it again! I'm not familiar with MM but now I'd like them to make their way out to the west coast :)

From what I've researched on pizza stones, good quality ones are usually heat safe up to 600 degrees. Cheaper ones have a reputation for cracking. My Pampered Chef pizza stone is well-seasoned and has been used at 500+ degrees for over 11 years now!

I would suggest also testing your oven temperature to see if it runs hot. Also, never place a chilled pizza on a heated stone or you'll risk thermal shock. Finally, since pizza stones vary from brand to brand, it's always a good idea to check your pizza stone's instructions to see what specific degree your stone is heat safe up to.

500-550 degrees, however, is a pretty typical cooking temperature for homemade pizza recipes all over the internet. I'm sorry you had some misfortune with it!

I just got finished making this tonight and it was spot on! We are avid Mellow Mushroom fans and may never (have to) go there again after this. I cannot believe it came out so perfectly. Living in the swampy south I had to add a bit of flour but everything else was perfect the way it was. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into perfecting this recipe. I cannot say enough, but again THANK YOU! and YUM!-Carrie in GA

I never post, but just HAD to! Made this last night (Holy Shiitake is my fav pizza evah)! You nailed it! Thank you so much for sharing this!As someone else posted, I did have to use more flour to get a nice texture on the dough (I also live in the "swampy south". I used Black Truffle oil instead of white.It was just amazing! Thank you thank you!

I made this last night and feel like I did something wrong :( the dough was hard, tough and under salted. I followed the recipe precisely and didn't even add extra flour as mentioned in the other comments. My first thought was that it was overworked, even though it was in the mixer at the stir setting for exactly 5 minutes. Could it have been an issue that occurred when rising (2 hours in fridge, 1 on countertop), or was it too dry? Any help would be appreciated, I want to try it till I get it right. Thanks folks

First, I'm sorry to hear you had a tough time with the pizza crust! It's always frustrating to feel like you've wasted ingredients on a dud meal. Been there.

Next, it's impossible for me to say what the problem is exactly, but I believe the answer would be that you refrigerated the dough 2 hours then 1 hour on the countertop. Refrigerating the dough SLOWS down the rising process--that's why in my post I say you can do it *overnight*. A couple hours probably stunted the rise almost completely since you followed it with just 1 hour countertop rise. The yeast, I'd wager, never got a chance to do its job. That could definitely leave a tough crust.

Most common other issues...

YEAST - either killing the yeast with too-hot water (needs to stay below 110 degrees, OR technically you don't have to proof yeast when it has sufficient rise time) or using expired yeast that is too old to be good at its job. If this were your problem, you would have seen low rise and it would have been tougher to roll out.

FLOUR - different flour brands will yield different results. Even all-purpose flours across different brands can have vastly different protein and gluten levels. Years ago a professional French baker recommended King Arthur brand and I've used it ever since as my go-to all-purpose flour. If you told me you used Walmart's generic brand...I'd say blame Walmart. Another pizza dough recipe I use from Cook's Country (America's Test Kitchen) uses 1/2 AP flour and 1/2 bread flour, and I love the way the dough turns out! You bake it in an olive-oil coated jelly roll pan and it turns out a lot like Pizza Hut's airy, crisp, lacy edged pan pizza crust.

RISE - Did the dough double in size? Did it have a warm, dark place to be still in? Rise time varies from place to place, and season to season. A good way to ensure a decent rise is to place the covered dough in an oven (turned off) and add a dish of boiling water to a pan on the bottom rack. Humidity, temperature, etc. varies by location and can stunt a rise, OR overproof a rise.

Then there's just so many other things like baked too long, kneaded too long, over-floured, mis-measured an ingredient, etc. But I rea

As for the under salted comment, I'm just not sure about that. I know yeast doughs aren't great to add a lot of salt to, as salt kills yeast (which is why you should never add salt directly to yeast mixture, but dilute it into flour first). Also, pizza gets topped with already very salty ingredients. Cheese is salty, sauce can be salted, garlic butter can be salted, olives, pepperoni, etc. Add more salt if you wish next time, but salt helps regulate the way the yeast behaves in dough, so I'd be careful. Experts advise roughly 1/2 tsp salt per cup of flour. So my recipe having 2 tsp for 3.5 cups of flour sounds just right.

If you try it again with better, same, or different results let me know! My best advice is to rise ALL NIGHT and then some in the fridge, then let it come all the way to room temp on counter. OR, best way: rise in oven with the boiling water. I get awesome, fast results that way. Good luck! And thank you!

Hi Heather! Thanks for the recipe. My sister and I have made it twice in the past two weeks and it's great! We cut the molasses in half after the first time and prefer it that way.

Have you ever tried integrating whole grains into the recipe? I love pizza so much and have typically used a spelt dough at home to make it a little healthier. I really want to keep as much of the Mellow Mushroom flavor and consistency as possible though, and I'm going to start substituting in whole grains for a portion of the AP flour in this recipe. If you've had any success on this front, I'd love to hear about it!

So I have been saving this recipe for months to try and we finally found a pizza stone we liked that can be used in the oven or on the grill. Followed all directions but for some reason on the grill it burned horribly on the bottom. With some weird layer of burnt that made the entire pizza stick. We didn't even do the temp as high as it was noted in this recipe or in the pizza stone instructions. Only around 475. We weren't sure if using the corn meal on our stone was an issue? Or if the oil transfered from the bowls the dough was in? Because we sprayed them with Pam to keep it from sticking. We have a second pizza to try but we cant use the pizza stone until it cools and we can see if we can get off the weird burnt layer on that. Has anyone had that happen before? It's a ceramic pizza stone by Emile Henry. Don't know if was too hot or if maybe crust ripped while maneuvering off the pizza peel and sauce leaked through....any ideas? Any thoughts would be helpful!!

gas grill, use a burner that's not under the stone and heat it indirect. If charcoal, set the pizza stone on fire bricks or something else that will take the direct heat from the fire instead of the pizza stone. Otherwise it'll burn everytime. Direct flame to pizza stone will result in temp spikes and burnt crust!

A.) If using parchment paper, once the pizza has cooked for 3 minutes or so, it should release from the paper. Slide it out from inbetween the pizza and the stone and let the pizza continue cooking direct on stone.

B.) If grilling, make sure you have a heat absorbing material between the fire and the pizza stone if directly over the flame or it'll burn every time. It needs to be indirect no matter what.

I use bread flour, and it works out great. I'm thinkin of switching to AP for this because my father in law bought me 50lbs of all purpose and I mostly bake bread. Don't worry, he also bought 50lbs bread flour at a different wholesale store

BTLover2, hmm...I wrote this a few years ago so I don't remember exactly, but in the photo they do look uncooked. However, I would recommend sauteing the mushrooms and any onions before topping on the pizza. Get all that water out for a bolder mushroom flavor, and reduce any chance of getting ill.